Community and Civil Strife

ABSTRACT What kind of threat does terrorism pose to a community? Two models of terrorism are introduced. The Unjust War model views terrorism as an attack on the innocent, but thereby misidentifies its criminal character. The Political Crime model regards it as violence for political ends, by-passing democratic channels. This misconstrues the terrorist's aim of waging war against a state whose legitimacy he contests. Associated with the models of terrorism are two conceptions of community, the Communitarian and the Hobbesian, respectively. While the Communitarian conception sees the community as independent of the state, the Hobbesian identifies them, thus assimilating an attack on the state to a threat to the community. The Hobbesian conception, however, even when amplified by democratic theory, provides inadequate resources to rebut a challenge to the state's legitimacy, in particular one concerning territorial boundaries. Arguments for permitting secession are discussed. The Communitarian conception may be able to ground legitimacy claims; but it may also justify some terrorist campaigns as needed to preserve communities.